


Inconsistent

by Camprodon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2018), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A nerd's gotta do what a nerd's gotta do, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Do I dare to write smut, Do we need more tags, Draughts, F/M, Fluff, I Wrote This Because I Can, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Not Related, Kylo Ren is an extravagant mathematician, Kylo Ren plays games, M/M, Mathematician!Kylo, No clue where I'm going with this, POV Rey (Star Wars), STEM, Slow Burn, The plot will be a surprise to me as well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-03-30 09:37:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13948830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camprodon/pseuds/Camprodon
Summary: Part college AU, part something else. Kylo Ren is a mathematician, Rey is a physics student. Eventual reylo, of course.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the very first fanfiction I have ever written, so feel free to send me tips or critique.
> 
> Started writing this because I found the lack of reylo physics/maths AU's disturbing. I will probably not update very regularly and would like to apologise in advance for that. I would also like to warn everyone that i don't have a very clear idea of where this is going, as I tend to make stuff up while writing. Even if I would have planned out a lot of things, I probably wouldn't end up writing them. This means the plot might lack in a few places, and plotholes are inevitable.
> 
> Now, for the story. I gave Rey the last name "Niemand", which just means nobody, since I strongly believe she is actually a nobody. It would take away some of the strength of her character if she turned out to be related to Obi-Wan or the Skywalkers, I think. Also, Kylo is, at least at the beginning of this story, portrayed more like in TFA than TLJ, 'cause I found it more fitting for this AU. He may or may not undergo some character development to become to broken, soft boy he was in TLJ.
> 
> One last thing I would like to point out is that Kylo's character is this story is based on a few (extravagant) mathematicians I know. This does not mean that I think they are ridiculous or evil. I only wish to pay some respect to them by combining them into a character, and simply ignoring their appearance wouldn't show much respect.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this story!

Rey stared confusedly at the signs next to the door she stood in front of. A glance up the building couldn’t provide any more useful information. Auditoria L 00.13 and L 00.11 , some classrooms, lab 7.07, and some offices were listed, but no auditorium L 00.12. A fourth look at the phone in her right hand assured that it was in fact 00.12 she was looking for. There seemed to be no one around that she could ask for directions, and so she just stood there awkwardly for a few moments, before deciding to do another walk around the building. Surely she must have missed a sign somewhere.

Passing double doors on the opposite side of where she was before, she decided to take a chance and stepped inside. The interior of the building looked exactly like one would expect after seeing the exterior. Everything was quite old, certainly built a few ages ago, with lots of wood that had had its best time long before Rey was born, cold stone floors – it could be freestone, but geology wasn’t one of her fields of expertise – and a high ceiling. The light was quite dim, so Rey could see dust floating in the rays of early sunshine that fell through the few windows present. The same dust was visible on the floor and balustrade of the big wooden staircase she stood in front of. A shiver ran through her spine when she realised it was quite cold in there, without direct sunlight hitting her. It was still winter, after all.  
Since the name of the auditorium hinted that it should be on base level, Rey walked past the staircase, her footsteps clearly audible in the rather large space. She thought it was quite weird that there seemed to be no one else around, but then again, the lecture should have started nearly ten minutes ago and there were plenty of bikes outside. Everyone would already have made it to the lecture by now. “Fuck”, Rey cursed softly between her teeth. She didn’t have a clue whether she would still be allowed to enter. It was a guest lecture, and as she had never seen the man before, she never had the chance to see professor Ren’s stance on arriving late. But even if she could still enter, she had missed a part of it now, which was a pity. A world-class mathematician would be teaching about von Neumann-algebras, a field in which he was apparently very good, judging by the prizes he won, and that was not normally a part of her curriculum. And Rey would manage to miss part of the lecture. Amazing. 

Other than some of her fellow students - the ones who preferred experimental physics, the ones who preferred real-life applications to such extent that they’d probably be better off in engineering, and the ones who just preferred to party and sleep - she had looked forward to this. Rey enjoyed all the maths courses, and the more abstract, the better. Sometimes it seemed like she should be studying maths instead of physics, but courses like statistical mechanics were far too interesting to give up on them. 

Rey’s feet had led her towards a few narrow doors, none of which were clearly marked. As she was already in the building, her best chance now was probably to keep walking until she saw an indication towards the correct auditorium. She opened a random door and started walking in a fast pace, looking around quickly to spot a possible sign before moving into the next space. 

As she was about to turn around a corner in a room that was chock-full of seemingly outdated measuring instruments that had all collected a few millimetres of dust, a large dark shadow rounded the corner and appeared suddenly in front of her. There was a distinct smell of Eau de Cologne when her face nearly touched the dark figure, her hands acting just fast enough to prevent a head-on collision with wat was, so the odour gave away, probably a man. A very tall man, in fact.

Her guesses were confirmed when she cranked her neck to look up to his face. His outlines were as distinct as his cologne. He was pale, with a rather long face, a very present nose, dark brown eyes that lay deep in his skull and full, blood-red lips. His hair, on the other hand, was pitch-black and had long, shiny waves that fell smoothly around his face. The unusual colour palette made him look like some kind of male Snow-white, except maybe for the many moles and beauty-marks that were visible on his face and neck. But just like Snow-white, the unusual look did not detract from his physical appearance. The thought came to Rey that she found him handsome, though he appeared weirder every hundredth of a second. He hadn’t changed the look on his face, moved or reacted at all to her nearly running into him. He just stood there. 

“I…sorry…I’m…I was…” she mumbled, but her words faded in the cold air and didn’t seem to have reached him. At that point, the realisation came that she still had her hands on his chest from the attempt to prevent the collision. She quickly took a step backwards, letting her hands fall to her sides. Suddenly she felt very uncomfortable. Now he seemed to notice her, dark eyes flashing over her. His lips began to move the tiniest bit, and for a moment Rey thought he would pull them into an apologetic smile before continuing his way. Then, all of a sudden, a low voice sent a slight tremor through her as words formed on his lips. “Have you read what is says on the door?”. She hadn’t actually read anything; her eyes had just scanned through everything, and she hadn’t bothered deciphering anything that did not vaguely look like L 00.12. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off before she had made a sound, his voice still low and quite slow, but somehow more controlled than actually calm. 

“Sensitive measuring instruments”, he cited, “access prohibited for unauthorised people.” A short pause. “You being authorized sounds…unlikely.” His eyes were fixed on Rey’s, and while she tried, it was hard to look away. In contrast to her, he did seem to have some authority. This time, the man did give her time to speak.

“I was looking for an auditorium. I’m already late, I was in a hurry. It didn’t…I don’t…I’m a student”, she managed to say. An idea flashed her mind. “L 00.12, do you know were it is?”. In hindsight, it seemed unlikely that he would know. It was now, despite his air of authority, also unlikely that he did have the right to be here. That was entirely due to his clothes, which she somehow only now noticed were…extravagant, maybe? He was dressed in all black, but that wasn’t what made those clothes stand out. He wore some kind of robes, long enough to brush around his ankles, made of a thick fabric. A wide belt sat just above his waist, his arms were covered in crinkly fabric, and he wore black leather gloves. Wherever he belonged, whether it was a medieval battle re-enactment or a Halloween party at the wrong time of year – he could pass for having dressed up badly as the grim reaper – it was certainly not university. 

Much to her surprise, he responded: “Of course I do.” Before Rey could react, maybe ask for directions, he continued. “I am lecturing there” – he took a quick glance at a watch that seemed out of place between the rest of his clothes – “for another hour and forty-two minutes”.

As her eyes widened and her cheeks felt burning hot, redness stretching out even to her neck, she did not succeed responding. Besides, she had no clue what she could say. Professor Ren himself had caught her somewhere she shouldn’t be, late to the lecture. On top of that, she had almost crashed into him. There likely wasn’t a standard sentence for this situation in the great book of socially accepted things to say, and if there was, Rey certainly didn’t know of its existence. As a result, she just remained silent, while her mind worked in overdrive trying to process what was happening. After what felt like a second or two too long for a normal silence, Ren finally spoke again, still observing her. “I presume then that you are supposed to be in the audience of my lecture. My lecture that started a while ago, and in which coming late isn’t considered…appropriate. And as things stand, you are both late and in a prohibited area. In fact, you haven’t even shown up in the auditorium yet.”

Suddenly, Rey’s speech returned, together with the courage to make an attempt at saving herself from this situation. 

“Well, you aren’t there either, Professor. How could you be bothered by me arriving there late if you are here?” Her fearlessness faltered immediately after, but the damage had already been done. Her best option now was to keep up some sort of semi-confident façade.

“No, I’m not. But while I have both a good reason and permission to be here, you don’t.”

“I wouldn’t be either here or late if I knew where I had to be.”

“Your sense of direction, or lack thereof, is of no concern to me.”

“Professor, if you told me where to go, that would solve the problem of me being here and prevent me from being any later.”

A pause fell. Then, as calmly as ever: “Back up.”

Rey twisted her expression into a confused look. “Back up?”

He slowly lifted his right arm, pointing his finger in the direction she came from, at the double doors she entered through.

“Go back. After the doors, staircase up to mezzanine, second door on the right, then end of the hallway.”

Ren abruptly turned around, probably to take another route. His robes swung around and were then waving behind him as he disappeared quickly, taking large strides. His feet sent a vibration through the room with every step he took. Rey hesitated for a moment, staring at the shrinking dark figure that was Professor Ren. Then she followed his instructions.

\--------

She cautiously opened the doors that – finally – had a small sign next to them: L 00.12. It was a large auditorium, about twice the size of the lecture halls she normally had class in, and probably more than twice as old. The seats, stairs, walls and desk were all in a light-tinted wood. Her eyes darted immediately to the chalkboards and lecturer’s desk, but there wasn’t a sign of the dark Professor yet. She didn’t waste time looking for people she knew, but quickly installed herself in the nearest empty seat, next to a guy she vaguely recognised. She thought she had seen him around the maths department sometimes. She leaned a bit closer to him. “Has he been gone for long?”, she asked. Mathematics-guy shook his head.

“About 5 minutes, I guess. He had to go ask something, or pick something up, maybe? He mumbled something, I don’t know. Weird man. You missed some sort of introduction. About where his research should be seen in the whole of mathematics, the importance, and so forth.”  
“Okay, thanks.” He just nodded in response.

The murmuring in the auditorium faded as doors to the side of the desk in front swung open and some black robes became visible, followed by Ren’s large frame. His strides were still large and heavy, making his way to the desk. Having arrived there, he scanned the space briefly, finding Rey in the back. His dark eyes locked on her for a split-second, before he divided his attention to the entire audience. His low voiced easily rolled over the benches up to the back of the auditorium; he didn’t need a micro. “Let’s resume.”

\--------

“You.”

For some reason, Rey had the feeling the word was directed at her. She had been copying furiously what was written on the chalkboard, not paying very close attention to what he was saying as his handwriting was hard to decipher. When she dared to shift her focus a bit to the right, were he was standing, it was very clear that he had indeed addressed her.

“Yes?”

It didn’t come out quite as confidently as she hoped. Had he asked a question? It didn’t seem like his style to make his lectures interactive.

“Please answer the question.” She thought she saw his lips being pulled into a small smirk. He knew that she had no idea what was going on.

“I – I didn’t really catch the question, Professor.”

Now she was sure that he was internally laughing at her.

“I’ll repeat it. Actually, now that I think about it, the question may be hard to answer orally. Perhaps you could illustrate your answer on the blackboard?” It wasn’t a suggestion. Thus Rey let out a small sigh before standing up and nervously making her way down the steps.

Standing a meter of two away from Ren in front of the auditorium, she spotted Finn somewhere on the left side and sent him a frightened look. He gave her a hardly visible thumbs up. She turned to the professor, noticing his impressive height again. Even from this distance, she had to look up. Slowly, she made her way over to him and the blackboard.

“Now, could you please explain to your fellow students why we use this statement?”. He pointed at a place on the chalkboard.

After a minute or two of stuttering, thinking and staring alternately at the chalkboard, the ceiling, the students and Ren’s arm – he stood next to her, his upper arms at Rey’s eye level, clearly determined to keep her torture going – she regained some confidence and formulated an answer, changing it twice along her explanation.  
She waited, and felt the dark man glance at her. “Nearly. This…” – he underlined a part of what she had written down – “makes little to no sense. The rest is…decent.” She let out a small sigh in relief. “Thank you. Please return to your seat.”

What was left of the lecture went by quickly. Whether it was thanks to or despite his extravagant clothing, Ren easily kept the attention of the students. While he was speaking, the only sounds besides his voice were some light scribbling of pen on paper and his own heavy footsteps. It sometimes seemed like he was speaking to himself, pacing along the length of the blackboard or somewhat heatedly chalking down proofs, and forgetting about or just ignoring the students. The fact that he likely wouldn’t explain the basics of his own field of research to himself was the only real proof that he was aware of his audience. He did not address another student. 

The lecture was over, and Rey started packing up, dawdling when she noticed Finn was still talking to his neighbour, so they could leave together. While trying to fit her ruler back in her pencil case, which clearly wasn’t made for containing rulers, she felt a presence approaching behind her. She knew it was Professor Ren even before she had turned around. His cologne had reached her before he did.

“I’ll have a word with you. Come to the desk.” He immediately turned around after that and went back down the stairs, simply expecting her to follow his instructions.  
Rey hesitated for moment, but then picked up her bag, putting the ruler and pencil case in there separately, and made her way down the steps for the second time. He didn’t seem to have noticed that she had arrived at the desk, continuing to put away papers. She was about to clear her throat, the auditorium empty except for two guys that were making their way out, when he turned to her.

“Fair work at the blackboard. I would normally exclude you from the next lectures for being late. I’ll make an exception now. But arrive late again, and you will not be excused in any way.”

“Uh, thank you.”

He was holding a pen now, and bent slightly over to a paper on the desk. “Name?”

“Rey. Rey Niemand.” He leaned down to scribble on the paper. “Rey…Majoring in…?”

“Physics. Minor in maths.”

“Third year?”

“No, second year.”

He hummed at that, but Rey couldn’t figure out what his hum meant. His face seemed to remain expressionless most of the time, which somehow fitted perfectly with his overall distinct look and weird clothes by adding an extra bit to his eccentricity. He slowly put down his expensive-looking pen and turned to her, rising to his full length again. He looked quite intimidating now, dark eyes peering down at her. “I expect to see you in three days.” The right side of his mouth twitched slightly, his gaze intensifying. “This very same auditorium. Do not be late. Actually…be here exactly half an hour in advance.”

“Uh…yes, Professor. I will be on time.” At that, he turned to packing his things and Rey guessed the conversation was over.

Outside the building, she found Finn fighting with the lock on his bike again. She laughed and tapped on his shoulder. “I told you to go the bike repair a month ago!” “I know, I know”, he replied with a grin. The lock finally clicked and he turned around triumphantly. “But bike repair will be for another time!”. That earned him a sigh from Rey, who was pretending to be annoyed by him.

“Come on, I’m hungry. I heard there would be fries today”, she answered, pulling her own bike out of the bicycle stand. Together, they made their way to the student restaurant on their own campus.

\--------

“So what do you think of this Ren guy? Pretty interesting figure, huh? I googled him, and there is not a single picture of him wearing like a suit or jeans or something. I did find out he has a cloak, though. And some kind of sword? Who evens thinks of wearing that when there are pictures being taken?”  
Rey chuckled as Finn went on and on about the results of googling Ren’s name, occasionally making gestures with his fork, with or without food on it, to emphasise his words. “Has he really got a sword?”

“Yes, yes, he does! Wait, I have saved the picture somewhere.” He took out his phone and started tapping on it. “By the way, do you think he hates you or something? Did he look into the audience and think ‘I don’t like the way you sit, come solve some impossible question’? I mean, he looked a bit angry when you actually had an answer. That was impressive; I didn’t even know what he was talking about, like, 15 minutes after he started.”

“No, no. Well, maybe he hates me, but he didn’t pick me out at random. I ran into him while I was looking for the auditorium, so he already knew me.”

“You WHAT?”

“Ran into – “

“Okay, but how? When he was away for a few minutes? Did he not take some secret professor’s route?”

“He did, I think, but I was there by accident because I couldn’t find the auditorium. There isn’t a sign pointing to it anywhere!”

“Oh right, you had never been there. I forgot about that. It is a bit hidden, that’s true. But everyone else managed to find it?”

“Well didn’t everyone that was there take ‘Philosophy of Science’ at some point?” Now it was Rey who was pointing her fork, trying to defend her sense of direction. She probably had been the only one of the second and third year students that didn’t take that course. By some mistake, she was automatically signed up for ‘History of Philosophy’. The semester had already started by the time she noticed. Her coordinator had then agreed with her taking that course instead of the regular one, as philosophy wasn’t an important part of the curriculum at all and she was just required to take a philosophy course. She did like history, and thus the problem was easily resolved. Apart from the fact that she hadn’t known where L 00.12 was, of course.  
Rey put some more salt on her fries. “Anyway, he didn’t say a lot at our encounter. Told me I shouldn’t be there, and that I was late.” She grinned. “As if I didn’t already know that. Oh, and he told me after the lecture that I have to come half an hour earlier for his next lecture. Now that I know he has a sword, I think I actually have to do that for my own safety.”

Finn nodded. “Yes, and take a shield with you just in case. I wouldn’t be too sure that he follows the weapons law, or any law. He is crazy, if you ask me. A genius, but crazy. I read an interview with him, and at a certain point he just walked away, after having insulted the interviewer. Hilarious, you should read it. I’ll send it to you.”


	2. Chapter 2

It was almost two at night. The weather had turned and a strong wind made the one window that couldn’t be closed properly anymore clapper loudly. With every smack, a sigh of cold air passed through the bedroom, that wasn’t very well isolated to begin with. Rey had draped herself in a few blankets, that disturbingly kept falling off of her shoulders. Her laptop sat on her bed, and was running low on battery. After a few moments, she’d have to get up to charge it. There was no way she’d be able to properly fold the blankets around her again after that. 

After she had done some, but probably not enough, preparation for the lab later that week, she’d given up and started watching a series. Experiments weren’t her cup of tea. How people could enjoy switching a sensor on and off and then trying do calculations from some never well-aligned dots, on a table that was chockfull of measuring instruments, computer cables, water that students before hadn’t cleaned up, calculators, and for some reason, always a few small metal objects, was still a mystery to her. And she hadn’t even mentioned trying to write some report no one would ever read, on that same table, while a useless lab partner had probably printed the wrong graph.

Rey much preferred working at a normal desk, doing something useful, with no spilled water or broken thermometers in sight. Or watching series, that was nice as well. 

The episode ended, but her laptop wasn’t going to make it through the next one. Not wanting to go to sleep just yet, she clicked on the link Finn had provided her with. A picture of Ren appeared, having the same expression he always seemed to have. She believed he was even wearing the same clothes. The interview underneath it was from nearly two years ago. A thought came to mind, and she searched for his name on google images. Soon her suspicion was confirmed. He had looked exactly like he did now ever since he had started appearing in images on the internet. Chuckling, she started reading the interview.

When the laptop screen finally went black, she was halfway through the sixth interview, which was the last one she could find in English. Ren didn’t seem to care about talking to the press, although the press certainly liked to tell stories about him. While normal journals or magazines didn’t seem to know or care about his existence, every scientific journal out there made a sport out of gossiping about the infamous mathematician. The majority of the articles didn’t mention any actual reaction or quote from him, but were based solemnly on “someone told someone else something interesting”. There were, however, articles and papers from his own hand all over the internet, written very formally and apparently directed at people with a very strong knowledge of the subject, since most of it was all Greek to Rey. There were indeed a fair amount of Greek letters involved in the formulas.

Kylo Ren intrigued her. Had her laptop not closed down, she probably would have started wrestling through a German article on his short time as a professor in Munich.

The following two days passed by like almost every day since college had started again last summer. There were always lectures to attend, exercises to make and papers to write. A usual day didn’t consist of a lot more than college, meals and sleep. Rey probably worked some more than average, but even the bare minimum would be a lot. The hardest time of the year was probably somewhere in February, when students had hardly gotten a few days off after the exhausting period of exams before the torture simply started all over again. There was an ever-present tension in Rey’s shoulders, becoming actually painful during particularly stressful times. Besides schoolwork, Rey also had a scholarship to worry about keeping, and an apartment that was so cheap it needed a lot of maintenance. Speaking of, she really had to do something about the clappering window before she forgot about it and would be faced with it again next winter. Friday, she promised herself. Not tomorrow. She had been looking forward to the party in the apartment block Poe, Finn’s boyfriend of nearly a year now, lived in. It would be the first party in several weeks, and she desperately needed that kind of distraction now. Seeing as it was panned the evening after the second of professor Ren’s demanding lectures, she would probably even be in desperate need of a drink.

\--------

The numbers on the lit up phone screen indicated that it was 8 minutes to three. Rey had just found a place to stall her bike and made her way to a pair of doors, different from the ones she had entered through before. If she had remembered Finn’s directions correctly, she should be able to make it into the auditorium in time. There was much more traffic of students going in and out of the building now than last time, which could prevent her from walking onto forbidden terrain if she just stayed in the stream.

The hallway to auditorium L 00.12 however, was empty, safe for a man in white clothes pushing a carriage with mops and cleaning products. Standing in front of the same sign as three days ago, Rey checked the time again. Two minutes to three. No need to spend an extra two minutes in there. Even Ren probably wouldn’t expect someone to be extra early. Thus she leaned against the doorframe, eyeing her phone and waiting for the digits to change into a numerical depiction of three o’clock. Unless the professor owned a watch that was connected to an atomic clock, he wouldn’t even know for sure whether she was two minutes early or not; she could just as well spend another minute standing here and walking in after three. Nevertheless, her hand gripped the door handle only a second after the imposed time.

The emptiness of the auditorium surprised her. His tall figure would have immediately caught her attention, but instead it was the absence of the mathematician she was greeted by. Taking a closer look, there weren’t even papers, a black bag, or a coffee mug present that could indicate he had been here. The lights were off. Rey gritted her teeth and let out a mumbled curse, although she was mostly annoyed at herself. Of course he was going to let her waste time here and not even showing up himself. It seemed like the perfect weird dick move for the man to play. The devil may have her if he wasn’t sitting in some expensive chair now, probably twirling his sword or something and grinning at her misery. That, or he couldn’t care less and had already forgotten about his mean act.

She was only one step inside the auditorium, and promptly shifted her weight to do a little angry pirouette that would leave her with her face to the door again, not wanting to waste any more time standing in the empty room. She wasn’t going to give that evil man the satisfaction of knowing that she sat here waiting for half an hour. As she still had about 30 out of the 180 degrees of her turn left, the door swung open violently. Both trying to stop herself mid-turn and backing off to prevent the wooden door from breaking her nose, Rey lost her balance. One foot managed to stay on the floor, the other was swaying in the air. Her arms decided their best guess was to impersonate a Colibri, but failed to recognise that Rey wasn’t built like one, resulting in her body tipping over slowly, but undeniably. The stairs down to the blackboard were positioned perfectly behind her back to ensure a long, painful slide and a few spinal injuries. 

Beginning to switch strategy in order to put her arms behind her back and sacrifice her wrists for her neck, something suddenly shot out – a hand, she realised in a split second – and slotted around her upper arm. The next moment, she was forcibly pulled back up and yet again had to use her hands to stop herself from colliding at high speed with a dark chest. Apparently that was now her standard way of greeting guest professors. Rey pulled her hands away quickly and then slowly let her eyes slide up to meet his shadowy stare, wondering whether she should thank him or take him saving her for granted, considering he was the one that had caused the danger.

She went with a stumbled “thank you”. He peered down at her in silence. She noticed he was still holding her upper arm; quite roughly, that was. Rey felt a bit trapped between Ren’s figure and the stairs.

“Fascinating how you always seem to be able to have put yourself in a precarious situation whenever I meet you.”

What was it with this man and mocking her?

“Uhm…well…at least I’m in time today?”

“Indeed. Follow me.” He finally released his grip on her, and made a waving motion with his hand, vaguely pointing to the front of the auditorium. His tall frame squeezed his way past her slim figure, and his black cloak preceded her down the steps.

Having arrived there, he sat down, placing a black briefcase on the desk. There was only one chair, so Rey leaned awkwardly against the edge of the table top, wondering if he expected her to just wait there with him until the lecture started. It turned out he probably did, and seemed to consider half an hour a very long time, as he pulled out a smaller bag, followed by a draughts board. Without noticing it, Rey’s mouth had fallen open. Professor Ren pretended not to have taken notice of any reaction on her side and wordlessly continued to take the black and white discs out of the small bag and arranging them on the board. Having finished his setup, he turned to her and she was sure she saw his full lips pull slightly into a smug expression. It could be mistaken for a smile, but the situation had Rey believing it was indeed a mocking smirk she saw.

“A game of draughts”, he started, “typically takes about half an hour to two hours. Your goal will be to stay undefeated until, let’s see” – he glanced at his watch, the expensive one Rey had seen before – “27 minutes have passed. If you still have discs remaining and at least one possible move to do at 15:30, the game will be considered a tie. If not, I win. Should you have beaten me before that time,” – now his voice hinted clear mockery – “then you win.” He motioned for her to stand at the other side of the desk, opposite to him. “I assume you know the rules.” She did, and was now regretting ever having stored those damned rules somewhere in the back of her mind. Not having a clue about draughts would be a great way to get out of this. Rey could have lied, but thought about that a second too late, as she already found herself nodding her head. 

“We add one more rule. With each turn, one has 5 seconds to do a move.” At that, he pulled out a small hourglass from the bottom of the now empty bag. Rey had to force herself not to snort at the comical situation. Of course he would have an hourglass.

His low voice was still loaded with something that sounded like pure schadenfreude as he ended: “Consider it a gesture; a granted opportunity to rectify the fact that you were in a forbidden area. Win or play tie, and you will find yourself in no trouble whatsoever. Lose, and you will receive a penalty…White gets the first turn.” He nodded to the white pieces on her side, and promptly turned the hourglass.

Rey’s hand trembled slightly as she picked out a piece to move to another spot. The board was slightly too low for her standing position, and she was already feeling uncomfortable under the man’s stare, that seemed to judge her move before she even made it. She dropped the white disc from a few millimetres too high up, and it landed with a loud click, that painfully reminded her of both how alone they were in the empty space and how dumb her move probably was. Her hands were already damp with cold sweat, while Ren almost seemed to relax in his chair.

She was losing, spectacularly. If she didn’t really know what a smart move would be at the beginning of the game, now she just randomly did something every time Ren turned the hourglass and looked at her expectantly. The conclusion she could come to in 5 seconds time had been the same every time since they were 2 minutes into the game: no matter what move she did, it would be one in her disadvantage. The professor seemed to be not one, but several steps ahead of her. Her stock of discs had shrank significantly, in contrast to the amount of minutes left. Time seemed to creep forward. Continuing like this would result in a loss after only a few more minutes, followed by a long time of bearing the shame while waiting alone with him until half past three. 

Not that she had a battle plan before, but changing tactics seemed necessary. Attack, she decided. Trying to capture some of Ren’s pieces at least had a better chance of prolonging the game than trying to avoid his assaults had proven to have.

The professor did seem surprised by this new strategy, but whether it was confusion about her foolishness or about an improvement was anybody’s guess.  
With 6 minutes left on the clock, Rey finally had to admit there was nowhere on the board left to go.

“I guess you win, professor.” It were the first words she spoke since thanking him for gripping her in her fall. It would be nice to be able to take that back, since she had nothing to thank him for now. She might have preferred him bringing his sword over this bloody board game.

“I win indeed.” He merely sounded disinterested, having seen this long coming. He wasn’t the only one. Rey could only pray her punishment wasn’t to go over all the faults she made or discuss game tactics. Her wish was granted.

“Your punishment is simple. You will be excluded from this lecture.”

Rey nearly choked on air.

“I – excluded – WHAT?”

“You are expected to remain here until half past three, and leave when the lecture starts. That applies only to this lecture; you will be allowed entrance into the last one.”

She felt heat creep up her cheeks, and it wasn’t because of shame. An anger directed at the ridiculously dressed-up man in front of her formed quickly within her.  
“You’re saying”, she nearly spat the words out, “that I came here to lose a goddamn game of draughts and get sent back out again?!”

“Yes”, he simply replied.

Her hands were placed on her hips in a challenging way now, in an attempt to win a very primal sort of duel of who-can-look-the-most-intimidating. She wouldn’t have gone that way if he weren’t sitting down, but had briefly forgotten that people were generally able to stand back up from a sitting position. She lost the duel long before he had even risen to his full length, but there was no turning back now. Her hands remained at her hips.

“Do I need to remind you, professor”, she snarled, “that these lectures of yours are mandatory to pass a course that doesn’t have anything to do with them? That because professor Stephan is such a big goddamn fan of yours, we have to sit through three of them to pass Analysis? If you make me fail that because I lost a boring board game, I –“

“Quiet!” His voice had finally lost its controlled nature and was rumbling far too loudly through the air, echoing in the empty auditorium. Simultaneously, his large hand hit the desk harshly. The sudden outburst was unexpected and would have shocked Rey, if she weren’t so busy thinking of ways to throw more verbal anger at him. Now it only stopped her for a moment, just enough for Ren to begin speaking again before she did. The words came out in a hissed manner.

“I can do as I very well please, and excluding you from a lecture isn’t an exception. You must be aware of that. If I feel it is appropriate to make you fail some course, I can ensure that happens without any problem. You know I can take whatever I want.” He nearly so much as whispered those last words, which Rey somehow found more intimidating than his angry tone.

He started swiftly collecting the black and white discs then, putting the draughts board back into his briefcase and pulling out a black organizer instead. It was only when it hit the table top, exactly where the board had been a few seconds ago, that Rey managed to hiss back at him something containing the words “telling someone about this” and “unreasonable asshole”. He just grinned in reaction, having gained complete control of his temper again.  
“Oh, please go tell some higher-up about how unfair the whole situation is. Let’s see how well that goes for you, shall we?”

At that, he walked up the stairs, covering the length of them in just a few strides, and opened the doors for a stream of early students to come flowing in. The dark professor then stared down at her intensely and flicked his head in the direction of the doors, commanding her to leave. She did, but not before sending him a look so furious that the imaginary lightning bolts it was sending would have killed anyone on the spot. Not Ren, who looked completely unaffected by it.

\--------

Back in her shabby student housing, where that one faulty window was still irritating her – right, she was going to fix that tomorrow – Rey pulled out some course notes to at least make up for some of the time lost. Carefully ignoring Ren’s as well as Stephan’s subjects, the first book catching her eye was thermal physics, so she went with that.

About fifteen minutes later, the very same page was still on display, staring at her judgingly for not being able to move on from the text it contained, which was not a lot more than “Chapter 3: Boltzmann Statistics”. The girl, in return, peered back at the book, and more specifically at the hole in the letter ‘e’, without reading anything. Her stomach produced a rumbling sound, but a sandwich later, she found she was still looking at the same page, though now having shifted her attention to the ‘z’, trying to guess what font the book was typeset in. Even with that, she didn’t make much progress, but it was a nice distraction from her anger and the fact that the sandwich made of stale bread hadn’t been all that good. Rey was about to eliminate Verdana – the letters looked fancier than that – when a vibration in her pocket made her aware that he had received a message. A quick glance told her that Finn had realised she wasn’t in the lecture. She decided to ignore it; he would get an explanation later. Apparently the group chat of second year physics student had been active as well, but that conversation’s notifications were muted. The new messages proved once again why that was a good idea. There was a guy named Derek asking whether there were night buses on Thursdays − there weren’t; Google could have told him that − , a girl she didn’t really know just sending a photo of her dog, and some weird conversation about milk that she couldn’t find the start of or reason for. Sighing, she put her phone away and started to rethink her earlier decision of classifying Times New Roman as ‘too easy to be true’. 

Later that day, while Rey was chopping tomatoes in an attempt to make something stew-like and thus eat a proper meal before heading to Poe’s, her phone buzzed again. She quickly wiped her hands off on her trousers to tell Finn that yes, she was still going to party, only to find out it wasn’t a text from Finn, but a mail sent to her student e-mail address. Expecting another survey or publicity for some project she wasn’t interested in, Rey nearly dropped the kitchen knife she was still holding when it turned out to be sent by a university address starting with ‘kylo.ren’.

“Rey”, it started, so he had remembered her name, despite not using it once earlier that day.

“It is necessary that you are able to follow along during the last lecture in order to still pass Analysis. Therefore, you will need to learn the subject material of the latest lecture. Professor Stephan considers you capable of doing so by yourself. However, I don’t.

Meet me tomorrow at six o’clock in the evening on the ground floor of the mathematics department. We will cover the subject matter in about 45 minutes.

Prof. Dr. Kylo Ren”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I hope you enjoyed this second chapter! There won't be another one for at least two weeks, since I have an exam coming up, but I'm happy I got this one done.
> 
> Here's a confession: I have never played draughts. I googled it because chess would have been too mainstream for Kylo, and wikipedia did an excellent job of telling me just how boring draughts actually is.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and 'till the next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

It had taken a few beers, a lot of convincing and the promise that he wouldn’t blame it on her if they lost for Poe to get Rey to play a game of beer pong, but now she found herself arranging the cups for a revenge match. Poe was, as expected, exceptionally good at the game, even in his more than tipsy state. The only reason they lost was that, as it turned out, Rey was exceptionally bad at it. The match had been a close call, however, which only proved that their opponents, Amilyn Holdo and Jessika Pava, wouldn’t make it to the Olympics either. Thus Rey had loudly proclaimed that she wanted a rematch, strongly believing they could win if she didn’t weirdly bounce a ball into of their own cups again. How she had managed that was still a mystery to her; one that she wouldn’t be able to solve, considering the amount of alcohol she had already consumed and the effect that would have on the accuracy of her calculations. 

The second match was a loss as well, even if Rey had thrown every ball in what was approximately the right direction this time. Poe, on the other hand, had obviously lost his interest in the ongoing match, which was likely due to Finn doing everything in his power to make his boyfriend pay attention to him. Rey had to poke him quite aggressively to let him know when it was his turn again, at which he mostly just threw a ball to the general area of their opponents without even turning around. When Finn started licking Poe’s ear, almost simultaneously with their last cup getting hit, she decided that she hadn’t reached a high enough alcohol percentage in her blood to see anymore of that, and started scanning the room for familiar faces, while the two boys left to what was probably Poe’s bedroom. 

Poe’s apartment was fairly small, although he could probably afford a larger space since he started combining trying to complete his studies with working. Abandoning his studies altogether would have probably been an even better life choice. It was already taking him three years longer than the program was supposed to last, and he likely had it in him to keep trying to pass certain courses for all eternity if there wouldn’t have been a certain restriction. While majoring in history clearly wasn’t for him – Rey believed nobody had ever understood why he ever started that, not in the least Poe himself – working as a fireman did seem more up his alley, even if it left Finn staring in absolute terror at his phone whenever he received a call while Poe was at work, already hearing some officer tell him that his boyfriend had died doing something incredibly reckless. Chances were he had indeed put himself in danger by trying to be a hero, as the mischievous boy inside of him tended to steer his decisions more often than his responsible side did, but Poe had always had the luck on his side. They formed a cute couple, the handsome fireman and the warm-hearted, responsible aeronautics student that was Finn. 

At this party, however, they had been more annoying than cute, and Rey found herself walking to the nearest couch to have a seat while trying to figure out where she knew the Asian girl at the drinks table from and whether she knew her well enough to start a conversation along the ways of “Hey, what brings you here?”. She decided that while she couldn’t remember the girl’s name – testing every letter of the alphabet as a possible first letter hadn’t worked – they definitely met before and that should be enough to approach someone at a party. Rey pushed herself out of the couch and walked up to her future partner in dialogue.

“Is there still some wine left?” The girl, that was quite a bit shorter than her, turned around to localise the owner of the voice that had just addressed her. Her black hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, except for her fringe and curved hairs that framed her face. A smile appeared when she seemed to recognise the brown-haired girl in front of her.

“Hi! Yes, though I’m afraid the white one is finished.”

“That’s okay, I’m fine with red.”

“Me too, normally, but in this case the white one was certainly better. Believe me, I have been spending a lot of the time tasting them both.”

“No one’s pressured you into doing beer pong? Weird, I couldn’t talk myself out of it. Thought it was mandatory here.”

“I don’t know enough people here to pressure into anything, I guess. Finn invited me, but I hardly know any of his friends. I met him at the library a few weeks ago, when he asked if he could use my laptop for a minute. We started talking a bit after that, but I don’t even know him that well. ”

“Oh, I don’t have a huge lot of connections here either. Finn and I share some classes, so I know some of his classmates as well, and Poe of course, but that about sums it up. But I do think I saw you around the student counsellors office before?” 

It was a calculated guess. Of all the places Rey regularly went to, she had simply picked one where it was likely that she had made small talk with someone. As the counsellor, Hux was his name, sometimes insisted they needed to discuss her scholarship again − that meant showing the same or slightly different papers that stated that she indeed didn’t have any money to spare − Rey had found herself waiting at his office more often than she’d like. It didn’t help that he seemed to make a hobby out of letting people wait for excessively long periods of time, while he wasted time – she suspected him of building model aeroplanes and being bad at it – sitting in his oversized desk chair. During one of these waits, she could have very well started talking to a girl like the one she was talking to now.

“Yeah, we met when we were both waiting to be let in. I was having trouble with my university e-mail account, remember? Don’t know if I told you my name then, but I’m Rose. Studying biomedical sciences, first year.”

“I remember, yes. Is the problem solved? The counsellor isn’t the most helpful person around. I’m Rey, by the way. Second year of physics.”

“Eventually it was fixed, but I had to return twice. He kept acting like he had completely forgotten what the problem was. I think he enjoyed watching me having to explain it over and over again.”

The ginger irritant proved himself to be a great conversational subject. Sharing all the horror stories about him that went around campus had the two girls quickly lose track of the time. There weren’t even that many sagas starring Hux, but all of them could be told in approximately twenty slightly different versions, each next one being a bit less plausible but all the more hilarious, mostly because they were accompanied by an extra glass of wine. More than half of the crowd had already left when Rey finally pulled out her phone to call an Uber. Upon unlocking it, she had to wait for a second or two, first for her eyes to try to focus on the screen – a task rather difficult when the light coming from it seemed determined to cause a headache within record time − and then for her mind, temporarily switching to turbo, to give the pixels some sort of meaning. After that, she was quite certain that a) there was a text from an unknown number, b) it was with very high possibility not from the Uber driver that she hadn’t called yet – clairvoyant drivers were a rarity – and c) it only contained a hyperlink and the words “preparation can be useful”. The fact that the link led to a pdf-version of a book called “Elliptic operators, discrete groups and von Neumann algebras” eliminated any possibility that this was a wrong number situation. Rey grimaced as the realisation slowly came that if this was deliberately sent to her, there was only one person that could have deliberately sent this exact message to her. By pure coincidence, there was also exactly one person Rey never wanted to receive a text from. Apparently Jupiter must have been in retrograde, or she had forgotten to offer dried nuts and a used cow bell to a random god of luck, because some deity had decided that tonight, those two people would be one and the same. The arrogant Kylo Ren had somehow gotten a hold of her number and was now using that information to annoy her on her night out, not even having the decency to detract slightly from the overall rudeness of the text by signing it with his name. 

Completely ignoring Rose’s slightly concerned asking what was going on – the annoyance on Rey’s face could probably be spotted from across the room – she started typing out a response, hoping to wake the asshole from his sleep so he could enjoy both the delight of receiving a stream of insults and the feeling of sleep deprivation. Not that she actually had that good of a plan when she started typing any disrespectful words that came to mind, but after noticing the time in the top right corner of her screen, she had figured it would be a great bonus.

“dgear Professor Prick, hOw nice to ksnow you haven’t oyet diedd from being a pompous twit and a dickhed. Congrats for fucking beocoming a creep as well and finding mye number iand annoying me with texts yay you. you get a mvedal for shitty sherlock Homles of the year and the.noble prize for thinking the nworld grows out of your asshoqle. Goodnihgt, bye and also go fuck yourslef”

Satisfied with her ingenious plan and literary capacities – especially the ending sentence was a true masterpiece – Rey proceeded to open the Uber app. Right as she was about to start trying to type in her destination, a vibration indicated that the professor was awake and had considered her message worthy of a reply. It wasn’t until the second try to open a non-existing text reply that she realised she was receiving a call instead. She considered not answering it, but the prospect of getting to yell in his ear was too big of a temptation. The whole situation became inexplicably hilarious to her, and she was looking forward to the conversation at hand. What better way to spend a Thursday night – well, Friday morning – than calling an insufferable mathematician names?

“You’re drunk.” The tone of his voice did not keep secret that he was a lot less amused than the grinning student on the other side of the line. He sounded tired, accusing, dark – he had mastered the art of sounding like a shade almost perfectly – and, somehow, disappointed.

“And you’re an ass!” The supposedly witty comeback came out too loudly, and resulted in some heads turning here and there, hoping to catch some drama, and silence from Ren. Rose had apparently decided that Rey’s anger and the person responsible for it were none of her business, and was now looking for someone else to talk to. Turning down the volume of her speech a little, but not enough, Rey continued to offend the professor.

“I really don’t fucking like you, you know. You’re fucking rude and mean, and, and, you know what, you know, you know what! You should mind your own damn business, and not text me or − or tell me I’m drunk cause that’s what asses do and maybe you should fucking start to try and be less of an ass! You know what? You know? I’mma help you not be an ass, how’s that? Repeat after me! ‘It’s none of my concern if Rey drinks and I should let her the hell alone and let her enjoy an evening without my own annoying arrogant self and also I should stop acting so goddamn superior all the time’ now that was lesson one so if you think you’re so very smart you should have remembered that, cause I didn’t, but anyway stop fucking texting me or calling me and let me fucking enjoy my evening and my wine –“

At this point in her slightly incoherent tirade, a deep voice, altered through the phone, interrupted her.

“You are _not_ drinking any more alcohol tonight.”

Now he was going to mother her? A laugh, that was just a bit too loud as well, escaped her.

“Make me!” 

Ren clearly still didn’t see the humour in the situation, judging by the lack of laughter. However, he did seem to appreciate a little challenge – and have no concern for social norms – as his voice rumbled through the speakers in an answer.

“Where are you?”

“At a fucking party. Where else would I be, like seriously, what a great question!”

“No, I need to know exactly _where_ you are. ‘At a party’ is insufficient information. I believe it would do you good to stop making a fool out of yourself and insulting your professor, and try to come up with an address or very accurate description.”

“I know the damn address, I’m not a complete idiot you know, I can remember something as simple as that.”

“I do not remember accusing you of being a so-called ‘complete idiot’. Now, what is the name of the street?”

“Why the hell do you even want to know that? It’s fucking – no _you’re_ fucking creepy, you get my e-mail and then my number and now you want a damn address. That’s not even being an asshole professor anymore that’s just really creepy and also fucking rude you know?”

“I prefer when my students aren’t hangover or drunk. You do not seem to be inclined to watch over that yourself, so I will have to be the one to ensure that you will be capable of going over the past lecture tomorrow. No, today, actually. If I consider it necessary that you leave this party, then that will happen.”

At that, Rey stood dumbfounded for a short while. It was one thing to scold the man for being completely unreasonable about her attendance of his lectures, going as far as to assign her extra reading via text message, but him threatening to remove her from a party asked for a completely different reaction, though she was not sure which one. While she had trampled the expected politeness towards professors underfoot, he had crossed a much more important invisible line. Countering that with more yelling probably wouldn’t have any effect, seeing as it hadn’t prevented him from crossing it just now. There were two options she could think of during the few seconds of silence. The first one came down to acting responsibly, taking as much distance as possible and somehow notifying someone with enough authority of the situation. The prospect of having to explain this phone call to a person that would likely turn out to be Hux – it always seemed to be Hux one had to talk to, even if no one ever actually _wanted_ to talk to him – wasn’t very pleasant, and even less so because she would have to do so in either a drunk or hangover state. The other option was a lot more appealing, and equally as stupid as it was simple: playing his game once more, and hoping to win this time.

But playing a complicated, unfamiliar game of which the user guide was missing would be, so it occurred to Rey, more of a challenge than she had initially hoped. Unfortunately, that insight only came after she had already revealed the address to the professor, who now had received the opportunity to invent ad hoc rules for his own game. A sort of completely unreasonable pride – and the fear of having to meet Ren after voluntarily capitulating before the game had even properly started – was the only thing preventing the rest of her consciousness from calling an Uber right after he hung up, and praying for it to arrive sooner than a mathematician in a likely very expensive car could. Instead, she opted for sinking down to the ground − though that wasn’t entirely her decision but more due to her legs deciding they had stood for long enough – and hoping that she had accidentally said it was number 147 instead of 417.

\--------

Sitting at a newly chosen spot by the window, Rey knew it had been idle hope when she saw a shiny, pitch black, and obviously impeccably cleaned Tesla pulling up. As far as she could determine in far from optimal conditions such as darkness, a somewhat dirty window and drunkenness, it was a model S. The determination needed to ever choose a car as expensive as that one was now showing in the owner’s stride as some dark robes made their way to the entrance of the apartment block. Although she had not given any indications about floor number or at whose apartment the party was held, a broad figure obscured the doorway very shortly after leaving her field of view from the window. He must have ran up the stairs while locating the source of music and loud talking, but didn’t seem tired at all. Without actually seeing it, Rey felt his eyes scan the room and landing on her figure, half-leaning and half sitting on the windowsill. The sound of heavy footsteps approaching, clearly audible now that some of the people had noticed the strange presence and had put their conversations on hold to stare at him, proved that he had indeed found her. She turned around before he reached her, but lost her carefully achieved, unstable balance in the process, her nose landing close enough to the floor to smell a weird, unappetizing mixture of stale beer, dirt and sweat. Staring at the joints of the tile floor, gathering the strength to pull herself up again, she noticed a new, sour smell joining the fun. A split second later, Rey realised the sourness was more a taste than it was a smell, coming from her stomach instead of the outside world. Hastily, she lifted her head, swallowed and tried to will the nausea away, taking deep breaths of air that smelled a little less bad than the ground had.  
It started to work after a breath or three. The fourth breath carried with it an odour she knew all too well by now: Kylo Ren’s cologne. Before she got the chance to exhale, she felt leather on her skin and a rough fabric sliding between her and the floor, near her shoulders and her knees. A pair of strong arms then lifted her in one sure movement, and suddenly she was dangling high up in the air, at least compared to the insignificant altitude of her former position. Still feeling dizzy, Rey had trouble determining what way was up and what was down and didn’t dare to move. The man carrying her did that instead, and soon they had reached the hallway.

Slowly, her organ of balance began to make some decisions and she managed to turn her head in the direction where she assumed the professor was located. Her assumption turned out to be correct, but she had apparently miscalculated the distance, as she found his face much closer to her than expected. The dim light reflecting in his eyes only had to travel about twenty centimetres to arrive at her widened pupils. A strand of his dark hair nearly brushed over her cheek, as he didn’t have his hands free to push it away. Rey, at this point, wasn’t even entirely sure where her hands were, having lost track of her body parts somewhere in between falling and being scooped up, simply trusting that they would be at their regular place at the ends of her arms.

If she were a little clearer in the head, she probably could have counted the moles in Ren’s face and the cracks in his lips, full and red as ever. Instead, she felt his gaze burning her skin so intensely that he could have very well been counting her pores. It became slightly uncomfortable, to say the least, but he showed no intent of letting her walk, nor focusing on the rather uninteresting surroundings of the stairs they were now descending instead of her face. He didn’t speak a single word, and neither did she.

A sudden gush of cold air alerted her that they were now outside of the block. Soon the black vehicle appeared in front of her, and Ren had to lower her – and did so particularly carefully – until her feet touched the ground and he could balance her with one large hand, the other searching an inner pocket for what were probably his car keys.

He remained silent while opening the door on the passenger’s side, arranging her limbs so she fitted in the seat – she had somehow managed to shove herself inside – and slowly reaching over her in the cramped space that clearly wasn’t meant for two people, certainly not if one of them was as broadly built as the professor, in order to fasten her seatbelt. It wasn’t until he had placed himself in front of the steering wheel and started the motor that his throat produced a low, rumbling sound, that could be interpreted in many ways, but almost certainly did not sound annoyed, much to Rey’s surprise.

“Where do you live?”

That sentence seemed to be this game’s equivalent of ‘checkmate’. Now there was nothing left for her but to admit her loss. Seconds later, Ren was already driving in the direction of her own apartment, only slightly violating the speed limit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am terribly sorry that it took so long for this chapter to arrive, but here it is!  
> Initially I was going to include the next day as well, but that would have resulted in a chapter almost double the length of the other two. At least I now have a clear plan for what to write in the next chapter. Unfortunately I won't be able to start writing it until the 16th or something, since I'm going skiing and am not taking my laptop with me.
> 
> A party is a great way to introduce characters, I discovered, so that was a great plus in writing this. No need to worry about that anymore!
> 
> Hope you all liked this chapter, altough there was little actual, proper reylo interaction and you got insults and an attempt at 'drunk Rey' instead.
> 
> Thank you for all the support and nice comments I got after the last chapter; it was a great motivation to write more!
> 
> P.S. I'm still waiting for the exam results, but I'm quite sure I passed :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. I am terribly sorry for the delay on this chapter. There has been a lot going on in my life these past few weeks, and on top of that, I had to find a way to finish work that I ignored.
> 
> I have no clue when I'll find the time to write the next chapter, but I promise I will not forget about this story.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this chapter, and please let me know what you think!

A sharp sound cut through the silence in a shabby student apartment, startling the girl lying in bed awake, and continued ringing in her head after she had turned the alarm clock off, her heart hammering in her chest as a result of the shock. After some negotiations between her conscience and a particularly convincing headache, an agreement was formed and Rey rolled out of bed to find a glass of water and then prepare to head to campus. The floor was as cold as ever, despite some rays of sunlight hitting it. Those rays, however, had an unfamiliar feel to them, as if they hadn’t been there before. It did not take long for her to realise that the only window was south-west oriented, meaning that direct sunlight would never have access to the apartment in early morning. 

Panic started to settle itself in her brain, winning a battle against her headache, and from then on controlling her actions. The first decision of emperor Panic was to rush to her alarm clock, hoping to find that somehow, the Earth had begun spinning the other way around instead of her having overslept. The clock, however, declared with the simple numbers ’15:22’ that there had been no significant changes in rotation during the night. Panic the almighty ruler did not pay too much attention to the exact time or the how and why of it, although Reasoning advised him otherwise, and instead opted for the rushed actions of dressing, grabbing an apple and running outside, realising she forgot to lock the door, hurrying back, and finally sprinting to the bus stop. While standing there, with the bus approaching in the distance, there came an end to Panic’s reign when Logic, Sense of Perspective, and a bunch of others threw a coup, installing a democracy again. And Rey headed back home, since she had missed all of the lectures anyway and there was no point in attending a group study session when she didn’t even know what the subject was. Plus, she had left her phone inside.

Back in her apartment, after having showered and eaten ‘breakfast’, Rey decided to do something useful in what was left of the day. Fixing the window, for example. If she managed to find some tools – somebody else’s tools, actually, as she didn’t even own a screwdriver - in the shared basement, it could be done in less than an hour, leaving her enough time to make it to campus afterwards and show up at six o’clock for the – Rey’s eyes widened as she realised what exactly she was showing up for at six o’clock. Memories from that night intruded her thoughts, and she watched them in horror. Nearing the end of the stream of images, she was almost convinced to simply not go, until her brain provided a replay of being driven home by Kylo Ren. He knew where she lived. Her choices were now limited to either going to a catch-up session with an intimidating mathematician of which she had no idea how he would treat her after last night, or taking her belongings, changing her phone number and taking the first plane to Transnistria. Seeing as she couldn’t afford to splurge on plane tickets and didn’t speak a word of Romanian, that last option was off the table as well, which meant she had about two hours left to fix a window and come up with a battle plan.

Looking through her apartment for inspiration – preferably the second edition of ‘Uncomfortable Conversations with Intimidating People for Dummies’ lying around somewhere – Rey suddenly noticed a package, probably of some sort of medication, on her nightstand. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Dafalgan. She was sure, however, that she didn’t own any Dafalgan, and that it thus hadn’t been there when she left the day before. In conclusion, either magic existed after all, or the mathematician had deemed it appropriate to enter her apartment and leave pain medication. While both options were slightly unsettling – what if her furniture started moving – Rey definitely preferred the first one, and started wracking her brain to find a memory of entering the apartment alone, but found a void in between the drive and waking up. Again, two options were possible. Her memory was erased using Dr.Doofenshmirtz’s memory-remove-inator, or she had fallen asleep before arriving. Doofenshmirtz always failed, so the decision was easily made and she went downstairs to borrow a screw, bolt and screwdriver. The knowledge that professor Ren had put her in bed and set an alarm for 15:15 called for an even more sophisticated conversation strategy, and she had only two hours left.

\--------

Rey needed three tries to open the door to the ground floor – that served no use except for being a substitute for a hallway – of the maths department building, having lost courage halfway through the first one and the door handle having slipped from her sweaty hands on the second try. The third time, she didn’t have any more excuses to prolong her time in front of the door, and pushed it open in what she hoped looked like a determined, semi-casual way. The sound of the door slamming shut behind her echoed through the near-empty space – mathematicians, she had noticed, did everything they could to prevent their working places from looking welcoming – and reflected off the walls, changing direction until it accidentally hit black cloth and died out in the robes of Kylo Ren. The fainter the sound became, the clearer she could hear her heart ramming in her chest. She hadn’t moved a step since going inside, standing about 3 meters away from the professor and waiting for him to speak, or not speak, since she never had a clue what to expect. She felt the gaze of his dark eyes fixated on her, as the corners of his mouth pulled into the slightest of smiles ever known to mankind.

“Miss Niemand.” The tone of his voice was the same as ever, even though the facial expression he had shown before speaking was more of a rarity, to say the least. Rey swallowed to remove the imaginary blockade that had formed in her throat.

“Uhh…yes?” Whether the word was a confirmation of her name or some kind of invitation to keep talking and end her suffering as soon as possible, she didn’t know. The tension in the air could be cut with a knife.

“How pleasant to see that last night’s…’events’ haven’t prevented you from attending your appointment.” Again there was a tiny smile visible, although this one could easily be interpreted as a mocking smirk. 

By lack of an answer, Rey inspected the floor tiles, noticing they could use some cleaning.

“Well, then. Since you are the only student now, a classroom or auditorium seems rather excessive. I would propose we use my office for this session.” He looked at her as if expecting an answer. Rey couldn’t care less about the size of the room where her 45 minute long torture would take place.

“Uhm, sure.” 

At that, he reached into an inner pocket and pulled out what looked like car keys. He either noticed the somewhat confused look in Rey’s eyes, or had planned to explain himself anyway, because he answered the unspoken question.

“As I am a guest professor at this university, I have not been assigned an office for the few days that I am lecturing here. My office is therefore located in my hotel room.” He paused, and then made a vague waving motion towards the door. “After you.”

Out of instinct, and because of the common saying that one should never agree to go to a hotel room with a mathematician that may or may not have a sword, Rey hesitated. But then again, one probably shouldn’t be driven home drunk by that same mathematician either, and seeing as everyone was slowly leaving campus now, there wouldn’t be much difference between being is his office on campus or somewhere else. The strongest argument, though, was probably that she didn’t feel like explaining to professor Ren why exactly she was opposed to his suggestion. 

Before she knew it, Rey found herself yet again in his expensive Tesla.

\--------

“No, tell me, how do you go about proving that there is a partial isometry in M, such that the statement I just wrote down is true? I want a formal proof of “there exists”, not you looking for an example. I thought it was quite obvious that looking for examples is _not_ efficient when working in von Neumann-algebra.”

“I…I don’t know, I don’t see why that would necessarily…” Her voice died out. She didn’t even know what she was going to answer. Professor Ren had kept his word and indeed went over all of the subject matter in just under 45 minutes, meaning he had hardly taken the time to breath, let alone for her to understand it before moving on to a next part. Surprisingly, it had been less uncomfortable than she had feared, since he had kept on talking, focused on the papers in front of him, and she didn’t even have to look in his direction. Apparently, he had noticed that she wasn’t stressed enough, because just when she thought the session was over and she could go home and forget about this, he announced that he would ‘ask some questions to test her understanding’. He was mostly testing her nerves, as his questions turned out to be excruciatingly difficult. Rey had answered the first one wrongly, and didn’t even have an answer for the ones that followed. She had felt a flickering of hope when she actually understood what this last question was about. Her hope quickly disappeared with the professor’s response. This had been the eighth time she had to admit that she couldn’t solve the problem.

“I showed the proof to a very similar statement earlier. The method for this one is exactly the same, only the reason why each of the steps follow differs. I’ll tell you there are three reasons: one is given as information about p and q, one can be derived from a lemma we have seen, and the third one doesn’t even need explanation as it is almost trivial. Try harder.”

“I can’t do it.”

“I don’t believe that, and I do not like that you keep giving up. I ask you to prove that there exists a _u_ so that this” – he pointed at the statement again – “holds. I expect you to prove that, not to tell me you can’t.”

“Professor, I actually don’t even know why there would exist a _u_. How am I supposed to know how to prove it then?”

“Right. In that case, we start over.”

Although Rey did her very best to hold it in, a sigh escaped her mouth. The mathematician pretended not to hear it, collected the papers in front of him and walked to her side of the desk they were working on, somewhere in a corner of the large hotel room. Instead of taking his chair with him, he crouched next to her, his hands placed on desk. For the first time since she met him, Ren’s face was lower than hers. She felt uncomfortable in this setting, even more so than before. How they were sitting there reminded her of primary school, when teachers used to crouch beside her after she had asked a question, to be at eyelevel before answering. This way of teaching had always felt somewhat belittling to her.  
He turned some papers until he found the start of the course, then turned his head towards her.

“First part. What do you remember, what don’t you remember?” He kept watching her as he waited for an answer, his near-black eyes making an attempt at having an expectant look to them, instead of the usual commanding and arrogant stare. Still, even when imitating normal human behaviour, the slightly widened pupils sent out radiation that intruded her personal space and cut right through her courage. The scent of his cologne invaded her nose and her personal bubble was indented by his large presence. It made Rey’s voice no more than a high pitched, fragile tremble when she started responding.

“I believe that I under-“. The soft sound simply disappeared, and Rey cleared her throat to save her sentence. “That I understand all three types and how they can be used to create any new W*-algebra. But the part about semifinite, purely infinite, and…what was it? Properly infinite? That is all blurry to me. Is this about actual infinities?”

“No, those are factors as well, and have those names according to which of types I, II and III they contain.”

“Oh…” She wasn’t sure she actually understood what that meant. Ren must have spotted the confused look on her face – although it was hard to believe he was capable of interpreting facial expressions – because he didn’t proceed to the next theorem.

“It is not my habit, because the abstractness is what makes this subject elegant, but I shall give some examples.”

\--------

The rest of the ‘lecture’ continued in a calm way, or at least as calm as a lecture in the hotel room of a professor could possibly be. Ren’s imitation of an extra lessons teacher became more credible with every example and additional explanation, while Rey slowly adapted to her role as interested student.

That was, until the point where the last page of his notes was turned over and didn’t appear to have anything written on the backside, upon which Rey made the – incorrect, as would soon become clear – assumption that the rather strange class would be dismissed. The dark figure next to her made no preparation to leave his spot and make way for her to stand up, but instead kept looking from the empty page, to her, across the room, and then back to the white A4. It wasn’t until she nervously clicked her pen and started to slightly move her feet – she somehow hoped the action would initiate a subconscious reaction of his feet, causing him to start moving away – that he fixated his look on a point somewhere between the far end of the desk and a standing lamp and spoke in a voice as low as ever, but more hesitatingly than usual: “Would you care for a drink?”

The simple question provoked a series of disastrous situations playing in Rey’s head, each one more terrifying than the previous. Him judging her because she spilt her drink, or couldn’t open a bottle, then her becoming drunk again and re-enacting last night’s situation, then him actually trying to get her drunk, then him poisoning her via a drink, then him bending her over on the desk – That was were she forced herself to stop. The guts to refuse his offer lacked anyway, so by means of comforting the part of her brain that loudly protested, she promised to herself to run out as soon as any of the situations happened or were about to happen.

“Uh…yes, I mean, I…yeah, fine.”

“Excellent.”

The professor stood up and covered to distance to the telephone on his nightstand in just two heavy strides. His cape-like clothes were still catching up with him as he picked up the wired black telephone, that seemed out of place in the ultra-modern interior.

“Evening. A 2009 Sequoia Grove Cambium from Napa Valley, two glasses, and some black olives…Yes, immediately. Room 412.”

Rey wasn’t a big fan of olives, but wisely kept her mouth shut, as it was impossible to determine whether Kylo Ren would order something else or insist that she ate all of them, if he knew. He put down the telephone and turned back to her.

“I think I can safely assume that you have no disgust for red wine, since it seemed to be your favourite last night.”

It was absolutely no surprise that he was now back to mocking her – it seemed to be his preferred activity to pass time – but he had also given her the perfect opportunity to set something straight.

“Yes, about that. I’m sorry. Like, I still think that…well, but, my reaction was really not, uh, what it should have been”. He waved her words away with his hand, and simultaneously gestured to two armchairs somewhere in the room. “There is no need for apologies. Your behaviour was inappropriate, yes, and one would expect better from such a talented mind, but I do not require an apology.”

As they sat down in the cushions, and Rey sank about ten centimetres deeper than she expected, resulting in a very uncomfortable pose that she, without success, tried to fix before the man in the chair diagonally opposite of her would notice. He proceeded to speak.

“I really am surprised you manage to look this good shortly after having been in such a state. I do hope my…gift? Wasn’t necessary.”

“The pain medication?” Her tone was somewhere in between genuinely asking, an accusation, and already-knowing-but-having-to-ask-because-of-social-convention.

“Yes.”

“No, I didn’t use it, I mean, I didn’t even know it was there, so…Well, no, I saw it, eventually, so I know it’s there now, but, like – So no, not necessary.”

“You seem…tense. Relax, there will be no more maths questions this evening.”

“Uh, yes, yes, sure”, Rey said, doing everything but relaxing. When there was a polite knock on the door, her muscles immediately tensed up and forced the rest of her body to jump up a few centimetres from the cushion, which was over ten centimetres if one accounted for the compression of the armchair under her weight. As a result, she had to awkwardly adjust her sitting position again, but now Ren was distracted by room service bringing the wine. She couldn’t remember the name – a 2009 Something, from Somewhere with a hint of Random Taste, probably – and wouldn’t call herself a connoisseur or even educated wine enthusiast, but the way the boy in a tuxedo handled the bottle made her suspect that it was all but a cheap supermarket wine. A pity, because cheap supermarket wine was something she knew a lot about: finding the highest percentage and best quality for the smallest amount of money was a very specific, but useful skill.

The wine turned out to taste exactly like she had expected, expensive and dark, and she decided she was one step closer to calling herself a real specialist. The thought came to mind that they looked suspiciously normal like this, sitting in a semi-relaxed way – well, Ren looked relaxed and Rey wasn’t, so their mean state was semi-relaxed – in fauteuils and sipping wine. That effect was maximized as the professor seemed to intent to start a normal, light conversation.

“So, Miss Niemand, – Or may I say Rey? – what made you decide to study physics?”

“I uh, I guess Rey is fine. I was just interested in how the world worked, and I got really fascinated when the realisation came that it was possible to describe that world using mathematics.” She leaned a tiny bit further back. This was small talk, about her studies, physics, next was probably the weather. She could do this.

“Your goal, the ultimate thing you wish to achieve, is to _use_ mathematics? That simply is a disgrace. Physics is a decent subject, devoting itself to thinking, discovering, knowing and doubting, and one can only benefit from studying it. That is, as an addition to mathematics. You studying physics and using mathematics is no more than a waste of mathematical talent.” His answer ended a semi-tone higher, about 10 decibels louder and 12 words per minute faster than it had started, although to Rey, who did not have access to any of the necessary equipment the determine that, it just sounded “slightly more agitated”. The chances that the conversation would continue as a little chit-chat about the weather decreased dramatically.

“I think I am perfectly free to study physics if I want to, whether it’s a ‘waste of talent’ or not.”

“That is unfortunately true. However, I would like to try to change your mind. The academical world may benefit if someone like you became a mathematician, and I consider it my duty to try and achieve that. You clearly show an interest in higher mathematics. All you need is a teacher that can show you the possibilities, as I believe there is more to gain for you there than in physics. ” He cleared his throat. “But I will not continue my plea about this tonight. Let us play a game.”

“A game? Is this serious? I swear, if I have to play draughts again…Besides, you can always try to change my mind about physics, but there’s really no point. I study physics, I’ll keep studying physics.”

“I did not say we were going to play draughts, nor did I ever say that you should give up physics. But as I said, that is a conversation for another time. Have you ever played cards?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued. “There is a game, called Bela, of which I highly suspect you do not know it, and that I have never played either. If you do know it, then you have an advantage, but it will still be a more fair game than draughts.” At this point, Rey had already given up protesting against the professor’s weird ideas.

“I can bridge. I don’t know…What is the name? Bella?...But yes, fine.”

“Excellent. The rules are more complicated than bridge, but I’m sure you’ll manage. The goal is to take as many points as possible. An ace counts for 11, a ten for 10, a king for 4 and then you simply count back. Exceptions are the jack and nine of trumps, which count for 20 and 14 respectively. Trumps must be played if possible, al well as overtrumping. Before playing your cards, there can be made so-called ‘announcements’. If one has a sequence of 3, 4 or more cards in a suit, that is, in the natural order of the cards, they may say so and receive 20 or 50 points respectively. The player that has king and queen of trumps in his or her hand can choose to declare ‘bela’ when playing the first of those cards, and thus acquiring an additional 20 points. At the end of each game, points are counted depending on who won the bet at the beginning. Whoever gets to 500 points first wins and may choose what they require as a prize. Ready?”

Out of nowhere – or at least out of Rey’s sight, who was preoccupied trying the grasp the elaborate rules – he made a deck of cards appear in his palm, while it simultaneously seemed to disappear in the largeness of his hand. With trained movements, he started shuffling the seemingly new cards, handed her and himself six, and then turned over the card that was now on top, the queen of hearts. It seemed to stare at her, waiting for her to take the lead in the obligatory conversation about points before the actual playing would start, with eyes drawn in pitch black ink. Still, her eyes were of lighter colour than the mathematician’s. His face showed about the same amount of expressiveness as that of the figure, as he took a sip of wine.

\--------

The card that now lay open faced on the sleek ebony table was an eight of spades. Rey only had one spade in her hand, and it was a seven. Ren seemed to be more lucky, judging by the way the corner of his mouth twitched when trumps was revealed. Up until now, the game had went well and rather fair, although she had a score of about 60 points less than him, but that seemed to change now. One very good game could let him reach the necessary 500 points, and the eight of spades could be exactly what he needed. The card itself lay peacefully, unaware of any wrongdoing.

When she made a mistake that cost her 4 points – and that she could have prevented, had she not lost count of the clubs – it became painfully clear that he was indeed going to win this match spectacularly. With only four of their cards already played, he threw his remaining cards out on the table with a grin that even showed part of his teeth. Highest of clubs, and the rest trump cards. All of the remaining points in the game would go to him.

“Well, congratulations to myself, and a fair amount of applause for my opponent”, he said, counting the cards in front of him while speaking. “This is…4,11, 3,…plus 20, plus another time 20, this is a jack, then that makes…513 points for me.”

“You haven’t counted all the cards yet.” Rey pointed to the small pile to his right.

“I don’t need to, I already passed 500. I don’t think you actually want to know exactly how badly you lost, am I correct? Now, let me think of an appropriate prize. Do not worry, I shall not exclude you from a lecture again, there’s no fun in that.”

He locked eyes with her, and then let his gaze wander over what she doubted was just her face, while mindlessly rolling the wine in his right hand. In a way, he looked both like a judge that was considering a penalty, the hammer doubtfully floating above a wide desk, and like a predator observing his prey, trying to decide if the taste of her would go well with his wine, or if he should order a different bottle. He must have deemed the wine good enough, because his mouth parted slightly, and the low sound of his words entered Rey’s ear.

“I will require a dance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Kylo Ren is playing games again. Literally. I guess I just really like describing games, and I'm going to continue doing that. There's no way out of the game theme now!
> 
> The Reylo dynamic will be even more obvious in the next chapters, and smut is to come! I believe it's going to be in the chapter after the next one, but don't shoot me if I'm wrong.  
> I'm also starting to think this counts as slow burn, so I'll put that in the tags, to scare anyone hoping for porn without plot away. 
> 
> I really hope you like this chapter and don't hate me too much for writing too slowly. Please let me know what you think, and leave a comment. Getting feedback is truly amazing!
> 
> See you next chapter!


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